Joni Mitchell – Woman of Heart & Soul – a life story
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Documentary: B
Since the late 1960s, Joni Mitchell has been one of the
premiere singer/songwriters. Unlike
others from the era who have not managed to continue on, Mitchell has remained
authentic, potent, relevant, sincere, and an American original in music. Joni Mitchell – Woman of Heart & Soul
is a very nicely done retrospective reflection of her extraordinary career, as
much of a survivor as Tina Turner, and as consistent. If you believe she’s this passive, repetitious singer/songwriter
from the Vietnam-era, you know nothing about music or Joni Mitchell.
A true national treasure, her earth-mother sense has
produced a diverse series of albums covering genres you might not expect her to
deal with, like Jazz or Classical. She
is one of America’s great poets, proving this early on with her stunning
composition “Woodstock”, which she wrote because she was not happy she missed
playing there!
She also came into her own as more women music artists
were finding there way into solo success (Carole King, Melissa Manchester, Joan
Baez, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin), always finding something new, honest, and
well-rounded to say about the times she lived in. Then she put in anywhere from cleverly to brilliantly to music.
This new documentary offers an amazing case for all this,
including interviews by Joni, David Geffen, Graham Nash, Herbie Hancock, James
Taylor, and other insiders about her evolution as an artist. Her classic songs include All I Want,
Both Sides Now, Woodstock, Circle Game, Just Like Me, Morning Morgantown,
California, I’m A Radio, Amelia, Wild Things Run Fast, and the extremely
bold, extremely accurate Dog Eat Dog.
That lasts roughly 90 minutes, while the extras last an
addition half hour, mostly composed of some excellent interview moments under
various topics with Joni that did not make the documentary, but are just as
vital. There is also a promo for a new
CD set (likely to be a DVD-Audio eventually), a photo gallery with over a dozen
stills, a “Travelogue”, and a Discography of her career. The only problem there is not that it is
missing any of her albums, but that it does not give any information on them.
Speaking of stills, the most impressive thing about the
anamorphically enhanced 16 X 9, 1.78 X 1 picture image is the content of an
amazing amount of vivid stills. The black
and white ones are especially impressive.
The rest of the documentary is a mix of new video, older analog video,
and great film clips, giving the piece the usual varied look we see commonly in
documentaries. That is worked together
well, without any digititis troubles, but those incredible stills put it past
most such works.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, Dolby Digital
AC-3 5.1 and DTS 5.1, but there is little difference in the two 5.1 mixes,
while both certainly do better than the 2.0 mix. The DTS is a bit fuller, but this is a very dialogue-based
documentary and there is a very unusually narrow margin between the Dolby &
DTS quality, so you will have to try out both to see which one you like. There is some .1/LFE/subwoofer activity, but
it is nothing too dramatic, but it is smooth when it kicks it.
Music documentaries are becoming more common on DVD than
ever, taking advantage of the opportunity of the fidelity possibilities. This Joni Mitchell DVD takes its place along
side MPI’s Petula Clark – A Sign Of The Times and Eagle Vision’s own The
Best of Tina Turner – Celebrate DVDs as the best on key female music
performers of truly archival caliber.
- Nicholas Sheffo
